Twitter Tries, And Fails, To Move Patent Lawsuit To San Francisco

Twitter is being sued for patent infringement, and the company is doing all it can to get the case tried in the tech-loving city of San Francisco. In an interesting, albeit ultimately failed, effort, Twitter claimed that because the plaintiff has a Twitter account and had agreed to Twitter’s terms of service, the lawsuit must be tried in the company’s hometown.
As PaidContent reports, a judge in Virginia listened to Twitter’s arguments that the patent lawsuit be moved to a venue closer to home.

The plaintiff, patent lawyer and “aspiring screenwriter” Dinesh Agarwal, is suing Twitter for infringing on a patent that his comany VS Technologies currently holds. Here is the part of the patent which Agarwal claims Twitter infringes upon:

“…creating interactive, virtual communities of people in various fields of endeavor wherein each community member has an interactive, personal profile containing information about that member.”

The lawsuit took an interesting turn this week, when Twitter approached the judge overseeing the case in Virginia to ask for a change in venue. The company argued that Agarwal was a Twitter user himself, and when signing up had agreed to Twitter’s terms of service, which include a clause stipulating that all lawsuits must be filed in San Francisco.

However, the judge ruled that the case should stay in Virginia, as allowing the case to move could set a dangerous precedent of allowing satellite litigation involving any member of a social networking site.

Interestingly, you can check out Aharwal’s Twitter account here. He hasn’t tweeted once, and follows only eight accounts, including the White House and comedian Russel Peters.